The amount of memory required to store an uncompressed 90-minute long moving picture feature film (i.e., movie) is often around 90 Gigabytes. However, DVD media typically has a storage capacity of 4.7 Gigabytes. Accordingly, storing the complete movie onto a single DVD requires compression ratios of the order of 20:1. The data is further compressed to accommodate audio on the same storage media. By using the MPEG2 compression standard, for example, it is possible to achieve the relatively high compression ratios. However, when the movie is decoded and played back compression artifacts like “blockiness” and “mosquito noise” are often visible.
An appreciation of the present invention and its improvements can be obtained by reference to the accompanying drawings, which are briefly summarized below, to the following detailed description of illustrated embodiments of the invention, and to the appended claims.